Q: sort's key and cmp parameters
Paul Rubin
http
Mon Oct 5 22:34:27 EDT 2009
Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> writes:
> There were two sorts in my post and only one in yours.
> That's why you didn't get the same answer.
Whoops, missed that.
> When Guido made the final call, I'm sure he was balancing
> a number of goals including language simplification and
> one-way-to-do-it. I'm also sure that sorting lazily
> evaluated infinite sequences was not on his radar screen :-)
I can't help wondering if there will be feature requests for a cmp
argument for the rest of eternity until it eventually makes its way
back in.
> Psychologically, the thing that I find to be interesting is
> that beginners and intermediate users seem to take to key
> functions more readily than old timers.
I think key is preferable in at least 90% of the cases. I also think
a general purpose language should be able to handle 100% of the cases,
so if key is all you have, there can be a gap to fill.
> In contrast, some people who have have had deep experience with
> cmp functions may tend to first think of cmp solutions and then
> have a harder time seeing solutions with key functions. If you
> grew-up on C's qsort() like I did, then a key function may not
> be the first thing that pops into your head.
That could be.
> One other interesting data point: Python uses key functions
> in min(), max(), heapq.nsmallest(), heapq.nlargest, and
> itertools.groupby(). Those functions never supported a
> cmp function argument, nor has one ever been requested.
Interesting. Maybe someday...
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